Butcher's Circus: No Damage Stress Challenge
0:00 - Team & Trinket overview
0:44 - Match Start
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I'm challenging myself to build the strongest 0 damage stress team I can think of. In general these teams fall apart to experienced players with solid teams, but if I can get at least 1 kill against a meta team then that's a win in my book. It also makes matches against less experienced players more interesting.
I know there are some misplays, like at the start I should have transformed and moved back right away after my Hellion got shoved back, to avoid the possibility of my Abom getting stunned (I just got lucky). Good enough though, it all worked out.
-- Team Comp --
MAA: no stress team is complete without him, especially a 0 damage one. Nothing unique about him, he just does what he typically does in a stress team. Hard to say if it would be better to run him with the Carnival Masque or the Pitfighter's helm, a tradeoff between stress output and tankiness. The Eerie Eye is just slightly better than Insignia of Rank because it bypasses stealth, in case only stealthed enemies are alive, otherwise they are functionally identical for this build.
Hellion: Yawp bot, again not interesting and you've probably seen her in the meme videos with these sorts of teams. Bone Vest is a must-have for the stress output on top of the extra tankiness. I opted for Exotic Snuff just to help keep her at the front and doing her job (though this ended up not mattering in this match due to the opponent's loadout).
Antiquarian: Of my remaining options, I felt she was the most reliable and survivable character that can still put out decent enough stress. She's sort of a half-support half-stresser. Impossible Glyph is a must-have since it's basically a beefed-up Carnival Masque. I went with both for the stress output, but for a safer build you could use Tears of the Lost. I feel that I need that little extra stress though.
Abomination: This is the spiciest character in the team. His sole purpose is to transform twice, from there on out he's a meat bag. Seems questionable, right? But I felt it was legitimately the best pick to get that early-game momentum, get those afflictions going early, because he can (ideally) get his 2 transforms done by the end of round 3, which builds up to 256 stress total (64 each). Obviously I give him Wretch's Cloak for the transform stress, and it's your call if you want Exotic Snuff to prevent stuns, or some other survivability trinket to prevent him getting nuked before he can transform twice. It's funny how often people focus him down after he's done his job, they don't know they're mostly wasting their time. I usually try to lean in to this somewhat and pretend I care about him living by using absolution at half health. Eventually I just have to pass his turns and move him around though.
-- Comments --
For the longest time I ran Plague Doctor, because yes she CAN theoretically put out insane stress with blinding gas, and disorienting blast is nice as a makeshift pull. But she's a glass cannon and gets easily shut down, at best becomes a disorienting blast bot, but unlike the Antiquarian, she can't keep herself alive when pulled.
I could just have 2 backliners instead of an Abom, but I feel like that's a recipe for disaster, 2 characters fighting for the back basically. Abom can transform anywhere, and paired with Antiquarian he isn't completely useless after transforming, since she can use Protect Me on him.
I've also tried a pure support Flagellant instead of the Hellion, and while he's nice for sustain, there just isn't enough momentum to get those afflictions. I'd rather just deal with keeping the Hellion at the front line (Abom can move back 2 spaces which can be really nice sometimes)